the Dead Sea. One generation after another has gazed upon it awe-stricken, and from father to son has descended the tradition.

Here once were situated Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim. Hence, while admitting the fact of their overthrow, they seek to account for it by secondary or natural causes, and what is inost wonderful, at the same time profess great reverence for the authority of Christ. He says, and I believe him; he says, and let him be true and every man a liar: The same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.

Jesus Christ also, as you may remember, adverts to the terrible doom of Lot's wife. By Moses the account is given in few words. She looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. Scarcely any passage of sacred writ has given occasion for more fanciful speculations. Into them I enter not. The simple fact stands forth upon the sacred page. She heeded not the direction given, Escape for thy life. She looked back, probably with a longing desire, even then, for the home she was leaving, and she perished in the general doom of the ungodly. A timely admonition to all who like her have heard God's warning voice, and are striving to shun the wrath to come, to forget the things that are behind, and to press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Remember Lot's wife.

Just here, had the pen of inspiration been guided by the hand of partiality, the history of Lot had ended. But it is still continued. He who alone was deemed righteous among all the inhabitants of the cities of the plain, for whom angelic messengers are sent, to warn and save, is presented unto us as having fallen, fallen foully into most abominable sin. Is this he who maintained his integrity, his upright walk even among the men of Sodom, whose righteous soul was vexed from day to day by their ungodly deeds? It is even he; but ah, how fallen! how loudly he speaks to us from the solitary cave in the mountain, Let him that thinkest he standeth take heed lest he fall. It seems to us, too, that had Moses intended to have taught the doctrine, once in grace always in grace, or, that though God's children may fall foully they should not VOL. XII.-32

fall finally, it seems to us that he would have carried his history a little further; he would not have ended it, as he does, with the drunkenness and incest of the man who, beyond a peradventure, was once high in the favor of God. We cannot help thinking that were the doctrine to which we have referred true, there would have been somewhere in the Bible, in the writings of Moses, or the prophets, or the apostles, a ray of light thrown upon the darkness that now envelops the lamentable end of the once righteous Lot.

We advert a moment to the great Teacher's practical improvement of this terrible catastrophe. Thus shall it be, he says, when the Son of man is revealed. He refers, primarily, to his coming at the destruction of Jerusalem, but connects with it, as on other occasions, that second advent when He shall come with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Like the destruction that fell upon the cities of the plain, that also will be at an unexpected hour. They were thoughtlessly engaged; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded, when sudden destruction overtook them. Even thus shall it be when the Son of Man is revealed. As it was then with the beautiful vale of the Jordan, so at that day with the entire earth, it shall be wrapped in one universal mass of flame from heaven, and the earth and all things that are therein shall be burned up. So hath God himself decreed; so runs the record of his will; while, in his providence, he has left there in the Holy Land, the waters of the Dead Sea to chant forth, in their low murmurings, an unceasing requiem for those who perished in their guilt, while the same waters cry aloud to generation after generation, echoing the words of him, the Saviour once, but then the Judge of quick and dead, Thus shall it be when the Son of Man is revealed.

IN the Island of Goa there is a vegetable called the "sorrowful tree," because it only flourishes in the night. At sunset no flowers are to be seen, and yet after half an hour it is full of them. They yield a sweet smell, but the sun no sooner begins to shine upon them than some of them fall off, others close up, others continue flowering in the night the whole year.

THE DUTCH IN NEW AMSTERDAM.

Portable year in which forty-seven learned

N the year of our Lord 1607, the mem

men began the English version of the Bible, Henry Hudson sailed in search of a northeast passage to India. For two seasons he strove in vain to penetrate the ice barriers, and then turned homeward. His patrons abandoned their enterprise, and the bold Englishman," in his time

"The greatest sailor since the world began,"

went over to Holland, and entered the service of the Dutch East India Company, whose awkward argosies then vexed the waters of almost every sea.

Two years later, in a yacht called the Half Moon, the intrepid navigator again ventured among the arctic ices. Voyaging north and south along our coast, he anchored, September 3rd, 1609, inside of Sandy Hook.

While Hudson lay there at anchor the natives from the western shore came on board, seeming to be highly pleased with the arrival of the Europeans. They were dressed in ornamented deer skins and mantles of feathers. The pipes for the enjoyment of the Indian weed were especially curious to the English. The natives brought green tobacco to exchange for knives and trinkets.

The next day a boat was sent to explore the bay visible through the Narrows. Sounding as they went, they saw "a narrow river at the westward, between two islands," supposed to be Staten Island and Bergen Neck. The country was well wooded with lofty oaks, and a delightful odor of grass and flowers was wafted over the river. The party proceeded up the bay about six miles, and were on the point of returning, when the boat was suddenly attacked by two canoes containing twentysix Indians. John Colman, an Englishman who had accompanied Hudson in his northern voyages, was killed by an arrow penetrating his neck, and two others of the crew were wounded. After the friendly behavior of the Indians this sudden act of hostility on their part can be explained only on the supposition of some indiscretion committed by the boat's crew. It is certain, however, that the northern Indians did not regard the European strangers with the same degree of wonder and veneration as the natives of Mexico.

.Colman's was the first European blood shed in the peaceful waters of the Hudson. His companions buried him at Sandy Hook, and the spot still appropriately bears the name of Colman's Point. Additional precautions were taken against the Indians, but, singularly enough, they came off to the Half Moon on the follow

ing day without exhibiting any hostile intentions, and manifesting indeed no knowledge of the fatal affray. Only two of them were allowed to go on board the vessel. These Hudson forcibly retained and caused to be dressed in red coats, at the sight of which the other Indians returned to the shore. In a short time a canoe came off with two men, one of whom was also detained, doubtless as a hostage, but not being closely guarded managed to jump overboard and swim to the shore.

Eight days after his arrival Hudson sailed through the Narrows into the "most beautiful bay of New York," and turned his prow toward the River of the Mountains, whose perpetual inundation washes the shores garlanded by our fair metropolis and her daughter cities. And as his eye drank in the soft charm of the magnificent autumnal landscape, he doubted not that the broad Mohicamnittuck flowed down from the India for which he had been so long in search.

After cautiously sounding his way through the Narrows, the Half Moon first "went into the river," and anchored near the Kills, "in a very good harbor for all winds." The Indians came off to them without hesitation, even making a show of love, but Hudson, having in remembrance the fate of Colman durst not trust them. On the following morning twenty-eight canoes, made of" single hollowed trees,” and filled with men, women, and children, visited the vessel. The oysters and beans which they offered for sale were gladly purchased, but not one of them was allowed to go on board. In the afternoon the Half Moon ran six miles further up. The strangers were delighted with the loveliness of the surrounding country. "It is as beautiful a land as one can tread upon," said Hudson, "and abounds in all kinds of excellent ship timber."

Joyfully on the following day they entered the "River of the Mountains," seeming to them the portals of a new world. The light wind permitted them to sail but a few leagues, and at nightfall the Half Moon anchored just above Yonkers, in sight of a high point of land which showed out five leagues off to the north." The next day a favorable wind carried them rapidly up Tappan and Haverstraw bays into the magnificent region of the Highlands. At night Hudson anchored near West Point. The following morning was

misty, but when the sun rose, the light clouds dispersed, revealing to the voyagers the grandeur of the overhanging mountains. While the Half Moon was getting under weigh the two savages who had been detained at Sandy Hook, watching their opportunity, leaped out of a port-hole and swam ashore, scornfully deriding the crew as the vessel sailed away. Toward night the summits of the distant Catskills loomed up in the distance. Here they found

a very loving people and a very old man." Much of the following day was consumed in taking in fresh water and the purchase of vegetables from the Indians. Five miles further up the River, Hudson landed in a canoe. The old man who accompanied him was a "governor of the country," and conducting the stranger to his cabin provided for him with Indian hospitality. In his "Journal," Hudson says:

The tribe consisted of forty men and seven teen women. There I saw three, in a house well constructed of oak bark and circular in

shape, so that it had the appearance of being built with an arched roof. It contained a great quantity of maize, or Indian corn, and beans of the last year's growth; and there lay near the house, for the purpose of drying, enough to load three ships, besides what was growing in the

fields. On our coming into the house two mats were spread out to sit upon, and some food was immediately served in well made red wooden bowls. Two men were also dispatched with bows and arrows in quest of game, who soon brought in a pair of pigeons which they had shot. They likewise killed a fat dog, and skinned it in haste with shells which they had got out of the water. They supposed that I would remain with them for the night, but I returned on board the ship.

After ascending the river as far as the site of Albany, Hudson retraced his way to Manhattan, and at once sailed for Europe.

The Half Moon returned with a number of adventurers, and in time the trading establishment on the southern point of Manhattan expanded into a prosperous Dutch village. Trading posts sprang up in the interior, and, for the greater security of the colony, the Hollanders entered into a treaty with the chiefs of the Iroquois under the tall oaks of Tawasentha. In 1619 the first English vessel entered the bay of New York. The captain ordered the Dutchmen away, but they smoked on in silence unmindful of the impudent stranger.

The Dutch East India Company was formed in 1623, and in that year the colony of New Amsterdam received an accession

of thirty families of Walloons, hardy Protestants from the Flemish frontiers. During the severity of the religious persecution in the seventeenth century, they had fled from the Franco-Belgic provinces to Holland, and became domesticated there. An infant was their first production on American soil; and the name of Sarah De Rapalge, born at the Wallebogt, (Walloon Cove,) is chronicled as the first Christian child who saw the light in the province of New Netherland.

Holland was already a land of liberty and religious toleration, and from the first New Amsterdam so far followed the example of the mother country that, in the estimation of the rigid Puritans of the North and the Catholics of the South, she became a 66 cage of unclean birds."

In 1626 Peter Minuit arrived as governor of the colony. It was stipulated by the West India Company to send out, temporarily, with their emigrants, a schoolmaster, who, being a member of the Church, should also preside at the religious meetings, on the Sabbath and other days, leading in the devotions, and reading a sermon. Some individual was usually designated as a Ziekentrooster, (Comforter of the Sick,) who was to comfort the people and edify them, by rendering aid to the minister of the Gospel. Two individuals, whose names are preserved, came out with Peter Minuit in that capacity.

The first act of the governor was to purchase of the Indians the island of Manhattan. Of this interesting and most important event in the early history of New York we give an excellent illustration, engraved from the celebrated painting by William Ranney. The Dutch, foreseeing that the Island of Manhattan would, from its admirable position, become the center of their American commerce, and the capital of their province of New Netherland, desired to superadd to their original title, by discovery and occupation, the higher right of honest purchase. The natives ceded Manhattan, then estimated to contain twenty-two thousand acres of land, for the sum of twenty-four dollars.

The transaction is represented as occurring at the southern extremity of the island, near the present Battery. In the distance are the high grounds of Staten Island, with the nearer shore of Governors' Island in front, while a ship is lying at anchor not far from the shore. The principal figure

in the foreground is Director Minuit, attended by the Provincial Secretary, Isaac de Rasieres, the Schout, or Sheriff, the Kranck-besoecker, or "Consoler of the Sick," and various other officials. The dresses of these persons are all faithfully copied from authentic representations of the Dutch costume of that period. The red men, in their savage attire, with their sqaws and children, are engaged in examining, with wonder and delight, the trinkets and European cloths given them as the consideration for the purchase. In the background is the rough cabin with Dutch occupants, and the unsubdued forNeither Plymouth nor Boston can point to such an incident in their history. The purchase of Manhattan was imitated only by Penn, fifty-six years later, under the famous elm of Shackamaxon.

est.

In 1633 came into office the redoubtable Wouter Van Twiller, "a model of majesty and lordly grandeur," as the charitable Knickerbocker lovingly calls the successor of Minuit.

He was exactly five feet five inches in height, and five feet six inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions that dame nature, with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it: wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone just between the shoulders. His body was oblong. and particularly capacious at the bottom, which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs were very short, but steady in proportion to the weight they had to sustain, so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer barrel on skids. His face, that inflexible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance with what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament, and his full fed cheeks, that seemed to have taken toll of everything that went into the mouth, were curiously mottled and streaked with a dusky red like a Spitzenberg apple. His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four and twenty.

Van Twiller owed his appointment to a family connexion with the great Van Rensselaer. From a humble clerk the doughty Dutchman suddenly became a ruler of